“The same people who last week were screeching about the government having concentration camps now want me to give my AR15s to that same government.
“The same people who last month were hyperventilating about the government slaughtering black people now expect me to surrender my guns to that same government.
“The same people who last year were setting stuff on fire and yipping about the government rounding up the gays and Muslims for liquidation now think it’s a good idea for me to just hand over my rifles to that same government.
“You chuckleheads need to make up your damned minds.”
— A helpful reminder from LawdogFree as in "can I use this to swim to Miami?"
Cuba is creating its own Linux distribution. Everything’s backwards-compatible and memory is free, but there are no drivers, and everyone has to share the same library.
Networking support, is, of course, limited to the CCCP protocol.
Dear VMware,
Thank you.
Selecting the option Optimize for Mac OS application performance has no effect on performance
This issue is resolved in VMware Fusion 2.0.2. VMware Fusion now uses significantly less memory when the performance option is selected. This fix applies only to Mac OS X versions 10.5.5 and later.
Um, he what?
Quoting from my local paper, regarding recent incidents of police shootings:
Police said Dorado had pulled a loaded AK-47 out of his waistband.
Ooh, that hurt
The punchline in today’s Darths & Droids is painfully good. And the screencap works perfectly.
Abuse of Google
One of the other students in my reading class has a habit of typing in his material really small with no space between lines, in a gothic kanji font. His vocabulary lists are done the same way, and have some other formatting quirks as well.
Several weeks ago, he brought one in that runs to a page and a half of small print, plus an equal amount of vocabulary, and he’s showing signs of becoming a bit cranky that we keep passing it over in favor of other material. He’s a nice guy, if a bit intense, so I figured I’d take a stab at it this weekend, so I’d be ready to read the first few paragraphs out loud at the next session.
Yeah, well, screw that idea. With no room to write in notes or furigana, reading the old-fashioned language of a classic fairy tale was just not worth it. So I went looking for an online version that I could print out in a more useful format.
The story is “Tengu no Kakuremino” (“The Goblin’s Invisibility Cloak”), and I found at least a dozen versions of it, from the modernized to the dumbed-down, but only one seemed like a very close match. Problem was, the hosting site just wouldn’t let me read it.
The site is bunko.channel.or.jp, and it’s not available outside of Japan. It’s apparently a free e-book site for cellphone users, and while they let Google in for indexing, their PHP code rejects attempts to retrieve the complete page. No problem, says I, clicking on the ‘cached’ button, but they had a surprise in store for me: Google’s cache won’t show me the second page.
I know they’ve got it, because I can search for text that appears only on the second page, and see it highlighted with a sentence or so of context. Hmm…
So I’m extracting it a sentence at a time with carefully defined searches. This is still faster and easier than trying to read my classmate’s tinyfonts version and type it back in. And I’ve already caught four errors in his version, so now we have another good reason not to read it this week…
[Update: my classmate got his version from japanesepod101.com, a for-pay podcast, and apparently they never noticed the mistakes when they were recording the story.]
[Update: this story is most definitely in the public domain, so there’s no reason for me not to post the reassembled text below the fold… (formatting will be cleaned up later)]
Dear Amazon,
Seriously, where are you getting these associations?
Love & Ramen
Now that I know what the title means, it’s time to take a stab at translating the lyrics. There’s at least one line I have little faith in, and four that simply can’t be translated in a way that preserves the line breaks from the original. And, of course, there’s the subtitle.
From That Sky ～替え玉は硬メンで～
From that sky – “Hey ramen vendor, put some more noodles in this!”
歌詞：つんく 作曲：つんく 編曲：鈴木俊介
買い物行ったら定休日
しょんぼりしてたら
電話がかかってきて
デートが大決定
When I went shopping the store was closed. I was feeling down-hearted, when I got a phone call. Dating is a big decision.
スカートボタンがとまらない
がっくりきてたら
電話がかかってきて
バイキングの誘い
あらま どうしましょう
The skirt button that won’t stay put was breaking my heart, when I got a phone call, inviting me out for smorgasbord. Oh, no, what shall I do?
想像してたのと
なんか違う２１世紀
空飛ぶ車よりほら
やっぱKISSでしょうね
The 21st Century is somehow different than I’d imagined. Hey! If we can’t have flying cars, at least there’s kissing, right?
From That Sky 羽ばたけ
自由な発想で
From that sky, flap your wings with the idea of freedom!
From That Sky 彼方へ
勝利の女神さ
私が女神さ
From that sky, to beyond, the goddess of victory! I’m the goddess!
サウナに行ったら風邪引いた
ゾクッとしてたら
あいつが来てくれた
やばい！スッピンだわ
眉毛 描かなくちゃ
When I went to the sauna, I caught a cold. When I had the chills, he came to see me. Awful! I wasn’t wearing makeup. My eyebrows weren’t drawn!
想像してたより
のんびり２１世紀
並んででも食べたいのよ
有名ラーメン
The 21st Century is more easy-going than I’d imagined. Famous ramen that I want to eat, even though there’s a line.
From That Sky 轟け
未来の恋人へ
From that sky, roar [like thunder] toward a future lover!
From That Sky 恋する
勝利の女神さ
私が女神さ
From that sky, the goddess of romantic victory! I’m the goddess!
From That Sky 羽ばたけ
自由な発想で
From that sky, flap your wings with the idea of freedom!
From That Sky 彼方へ
勝利の女神さ
From that sky, to beyond, the goddess of victory!
From That Sky 轟け
未来の恋人へ
From that sky, roar [like thunder] toward a future lover.
From That Sky 恋する
勝利の女神さ
From that sky, the goddess of romantic victory!
From That Sky 轟け
未来の恋人へ
From that sky, roar [like thunder] toward a future lover!
From That Sky 恋する
勝利の女神さ 私が女神さ
From that sky, the goddess of romantic victory! I’m the goddess!
Stretch Marketing
In the mailbox: a hearts-and-flowers promotional mailer from my car dealership, offering a sweetheart savings on… replacing the cabin air filter.
In email: a web-bug-filled promo from Asus that says: “Spread the Love. Give the Eee PC. “
If I open my front door, will I find a door tag from the local pest-control company, telling me that the best way to show my love is to get sprayed?
